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Dorian took pride in the gray.
Black hair and green eyes were the marks of ideal beauty in Tevinter. His mother’s eyes were like emeralds, but his father’s were the uniform dark brown of the immigrant Qarini. So there was little hope for him, but for the little they had, they banked on him having green eyes like jewels.
Dorian came out with eyes so gray that there was a question of his…genetic authenticity. Still, his mother held hope, noting that they were more like a pale green. All of that faded at 10 and they became the silver anomalies they were.
So when you’ve got gray eyes and brown skin, your eyes become overshadowed by said tan skin. It was an annoyance for Dorian for a while, and when he was sent to boarding school at age 14, and thus gained moderate freedom, he was determined to solve his ailment. He thought about silver jewelry, but Rilienus had scrunched his nose and said it would clash too much with his skin, melt again into the tan. So he tried gold jewelry, piercing his ears to adorn a pair of simple rings. He would put them on the moment school was over, running to his dormitory to hook them in and ask Rilienus every question under the sun.
Eventually, Dorian realized he couldn’t rely on a man who often put his trousers on backward to give him fashion advice. The gold only further overshadowed his eyes, he determined, so he switched them out with bronze earrings. They glinted so beautifully against his tan skin, but it again clashed with his eyes. Rose gold, yellow-gold, copper-nothing worked, and the discrete jewelry boutique he was frequenting refused to do any more returns.
Finally, he thought about silver again. If his eyes were gray, would they not be further emphasized by the silver? He made the last trip on foot to the well-worn salesman and paid full price for two sterling silvers – much cheaper than all before. He put them on in the shop itself, and the way his eyes glinted…he tiredly smiled, having finally succeeded.
Rilienus, the golden retriever of a boy, was all over it. Couldn’t stop complimenting him, so much so that Dorian became more reckless, carrying them around with him and putting them on just so Rilienus and every student around him could gawk and blush.
He felt like a prince. Until he was called into the headmaster’s office with his father in tow to investigate the incredibly important mystery of the disappearing earrings. All students say it existed, but all teachers didn’t. He came with Rilienus.
Halward ripped it from both ears so forcefully, they didn’t break, they tore. Immediate regret clouded his father’s eyes, but Dorian was too far gone to notice them. Dorian just sat in a rickety chair with musty padding as a medic applied pressure to the wounds, while his headmaster and his father shouted at him, at each other, around him. He knew this would happen, he knew he would get caught, as he always did before. But he was propelled by bitterness. All the girls could wear their earrings, made their eyes gleam, made them self-assured in their beauty. But he could not.
It took a long while to heal, and Rilienus was long gone by then. At 25, Dorian sat in Alexius’ home, next to Felix who’d decided to take a medical hollow needle to his ears. He wiped it clean with rubbing alcohol and handed it to Dorian, who was well-intoxicated with human-grade alcohol.
Dorian stared at their reflections in the bathroom mirror. At his gray eyes, against dehydrated red scleras. Quietly, he pierced both of them and put on a pair of silver earrings.